Back to the Classics #1

I read this book for the reading challenge Back to the Classics 2022.

19^th Century Classic. "When someone is honestly 55% right, that’s very good and there’s no use wrangling. And if someone is 60% right, it’s wonderful, it’s great luck, and let him thank God. But what’s to be said about 75% right? Wise people say this is suspicious. Well, and what about 100% right? Whoever says he’s 100% right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal." "An Old Jew of Galicia," quoted in The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz.

Fanaticism: Its Source and Influence, Illustrated by the Simple Narrative of Isabella, in the Case of Matthias, Mr. and Mrs. B. Folger, Mr. Pierson, Mr. Mills, Catherine, Isabella, &c. &c. A Reply to W. L. Stone, with the Descriptive Portraits of All the Parties, While at Sing-Sing and at Third Street.—Containing the Whole Truth--and Nothing but the Truth – Gilbert Vale (link here)

Fifteen years before her autobiography, Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a Northern Slave (Boston, 1850), she worked with Vale, a British-born journalist, on this as-told-to story about her experience as a member of and domestic servant in a religious community in New York from 1832 to 1835. The Isabella referred to in the title was Isabella Van Wagenen, Truth’s original name before she changed it to the one familiar to us nowadays.

Born in London in 1788, Vale received a classical education and moved to the United States in 1829 due to political trouble (Vale was a follower of Thomas Paine and wrote a biography of this willfully forgotten founding father, one of the stones in the shoe of American history). Vale was editor of the gaudily named penny paper Citizen of the World for several years. Alert to opportunities to fight for the little guy and boost circulation, he took up his pen to clear the name of Isabella Van Wagenen. Vale was clearly an editor who knew a whale of story when he spotted one.

His fluent persuasive writing style shows that he was also obviously an educated man with the sense to know big claims need big proofs. So he interviewed the principles of the story, all the people mentioned in the long title above. They were members of one of the new religions that were starting up in the Northeast as part of the Second Great Awakening, the protestant religious revival that took place from about 1795 to 1835.

Vale asserts that the source of fanaticism was fairly simple. The members of the community mistook their thoughts and feelings for teachings of the Spirit.  Their interpretations of the Bible were peculiar and original. They regarded mere fancies, dreams and visions as divinely inspired. Seeing themselves as favorites of God and non-members as “devils,” this in-crowd formed what they supposed was a holy community. They also believed that good and bad spirits could occupy living bodies and transfer themselves from one body to another. These fervent beliefs were in place when Matthias appeared.

Robert Matthews, the self-styled Prophet Matthias, had a beard in an era when men went beardless so he looked like Jesus. This impressed, even awed, ingenuous people. Though a poor talker, he had winning ways and an air of authority. Not educated, he expressed a theology that was along the lines of what the community already believed. His kingdom was organized along authoritarian lines, with Matthias making all decisions weighty and trivial. Matthias and the followers had no truck with doctors, assuming that evil spirits caused illness. Members of the kingdom fasted often and ate healthy with fresh fruit and vegetables, which must not have been easy in winter in New York.

By virtue of his authority as a prophet of God, Matthias procured the possession of large properties of a Mr. Pierson (an unstable and too enthusiastic shopper of religious beliefs) and Mr. Folger (a non-zealous fellow, charming to all, especially females). Matthias also excited and enchanted Mrs. Folger enough for her to break up her marriage. She had visions and instruction from God to seek union with Matthias. In recompense Matthias provided Mr. Folger with his already married daughter, “young, plump, fresh coloured, and pretty, though certainly not possessed of those highly feminine qualities which rendered Mrs. B. Folger so attractive.”

Even though members were enjoined to keep these goings-on secret, word of these irregularities of course leaked out to the villagers of Sing-Sing when the daughter’s husband was discovered skulking around the village in order to find out what was going on with his wife. Of course, his problem, which he freely talked about, caused talk that Matthias was an impostor, or insane. Vale reports:

As these things became known in the village, the excitement of course increased; crowds assembled about the premises; the hill which overhung or overlooked the house, was peopled; the enclosures were violated by some, and great numbers thronged the road and lane leading to the house: while Laisdell, now assisted by the civil power, had the means of compelling the parties to appear before a magistrate. The carriage was now got ready, and the family, with great reluctance, got in and drove off to Mr. Crosby's tavern, at the top of the hill, where the magistrates them sat. On the road, the carriage was of course followed by the mob, previously assembled, hooting, hallooing, and implicating Matthias, on whom the whole weight of the displeasure of the people fell, while Mr. B. Folger, the most culpable in this case, not only escaped their violence, but was enabled to protect Matthias.

With this religiously rationalized sexual irregularity – like I said, Vale knew a hot story when he saw one – Vale, like-minded to freethinking Thomas Paine, observes “[T]hen we must come to the conclusion, that conversion is no protection against crimes, and that any degree of grossness is compatible with sincere religious profession, and the most pious practices and appearances; or that fanaticism is compatible with any degree of laxity of established morals.”

Vale provides astonishing glimpses into the entangled sexual, economic, and religious lives of Isabella / Truth's white associates and her relationship to them. Vale observes

[I]f she has escaped the peculiar pollution which threatened to affect the whole community at Sing Sing, that she believes she owes it to circumstances, as much as any thing--(she is near forty, not handsome, and coloured)--for at one time the spirit which affected the head, was infectious, and threatened the whole body. She says it pleased God to preserve her, as no match spirit was found in the establishment for her.

“Match spirit” was the community’s word for the soul mate Matthias picked out for members – everything in common was their way.

Pierson took sick after eating a dessert dish of berries, though he had a pre-existing condition - i.e., strange fits - that may have contributed to his health breaking up. Believing that illness could be cured by supernatural means, Mr. Pierson himself had negative opinions about medicine and doctors so no expert treatment was called in. On Pierson’s last night alive, Isabell­­­­a wanted to tend to him, but both the Prophet and Mrs. Folger scolded her, saying taking care of a patient was incompatible with her duties as a cook. Pierson died a lonely and gruesome death.

Prophet Mattias was arrested and charged but at the trial the case was dismissed for lack of evidence. Vale averts that this was probably the most just outcome.  However, later Isabella was accused in a book by a Mr. Stone of complicity in the presumed poisoning. Isabella successfully sued her accusers for slander, winning $125 (about $4,000 in today’s money) and costs after her case was supported by this book.

It’s no wonder that after the scandal Isabella / Truth concluded that The Big Apple was a sink of sin but she was not able to move out of the city for about 10 years.  After the trial was dismissed, the kingdom broke up. Chased out of the Big Apple by the scandal, Matthias moved west where he died in 1842.

I would recommend this book to anybody interested in the psychology of the cult experience or examples of the shenanigans that bring self-styled religious leaders down. It would also be of interest to those buffs of stories of the frowning prejudice of public opinion against people whose actions the folks just don’t like.  

I won't Stay in a World without Love

A World of Love – Elizabeth Bowen

This 1954 novel is an Anglo-Irish novel, like J.G. Farrell’s Troubles. Both novels examine how the Anglo-Irish experienced WWI as a source of trauma.

The action occurs in Montefort, the country house of the Danbys. Such is its decay – they are farmers too poor to keep it up - when a stranger drives up to the house he says, “No idea there was anyone living here… .”

For the small mansion had the air of having gone down: for one thing, trees had been felled around it, leaving space impoverished and the long roofline framed by too much sky. The door no longer knew hospitality; moss obliterated the sweep for the turning carriage; the avenue lived on as a rutted track, and a poor fence, close up to the house, served to keep back grazing cattle. Had the facade not carried a ghost of style, Montefort would have looked, as it almost did, like nothing more than the annexe of its farm buildings… .

Like Mary Webb’s Gone to Earth, the rural setting is a dream world full of colors, smells, sensations and landscapes that glisten with the mists of fantasy, like a fairy tale.

The sun rose on a landscape still pale with the heat of the day before. There was no haze, but a sort of coppery burnish out of the air lit on flowing fields, rocks, the face of one house, and the cliff of limestone overhanging the river. The river gorge cut deep through the uplands. This light at this hour, so unfamiliar, brought into being a new world--painted expectant, empty, intense. This month was June… .

This novel has five living characters, a ghost, and the thirteen-year-old Maud has a familiar named Gay David. The ghost of Montefort's former owner, who was killed in the First World War, symbolizes the past –dispossession, destructive wars - that haunts The Emerald Isle, as it decides what its role is going to be after WWII. Maud’s pixie is an ironic counterpart to the ghost. I don't know anything about child development, but isn't 13 too old to have an imaginary friend?

The characters are vivid enough as they live in a house that has no clocks. To ground herself in her family’s free-floating existence, Maud obsesses about listening to the chimes of Big Ben on the Beeb at 9:00 p.m. But Bowen is not a modernist that doesn’t know what her characters are doing to do. Her characters are puppets that Bowen skillfully moves across the stage. Also cagey like a modernist should be, Bowen’s story revolves around old letters found in a trunk in the attic, but Bowen never reveals the sender or receiver.

A solid novel, a short introduction to Bowen before one turns to heavier fare such as The Heat of the Day or The Death of the Heart.

Inspector Montalbano #19

A Beam of Light – Andrea Camillieri

Released in 2012, this book recounts the nineteenth investigation by Commissioner Salvo Montalbano in the fictional Sicilian town of Vigata. In such a long-running series, it’s reasonable to expect the appearance of the usual characters and the usual situations which, after all, combine to make the series enjoyable. We fans like Officer Catarella’s inability to communicate, Fazio’s enthusiasm for accuracy and completeness, Augello’s winning ways with females, and foodie Salvo’s dinners by housekeeper Adelina and lunches at Enzo’s followed by his walk on the jetty to play with the crabs.

Nothing is missing – we even have a repetition of the theme of the passing of time, though we’re happy that Salvo is not having the usual health problems that we’d expect in a middle-aged Mediterranean male, a highly relatable genotype for this reader.

The core of the narrative sees the intertwining of three mysteries in which Montalbano is involved in a more or less direct way, and to which he must try to devise an explanation. The main thriller comes from the robbery of a beautiful young woman married to a wealthy middle-aged jealous man. It’s a complicated tangle to get one's arms around, but the relationships are plausible and plot twists surprise and satisfy.

A second story line is the hunt for three Tunisian immigrants suspected of arms trafficking. Again the characterization is economical and convincing.

The third story line is the love affair of Salvo with Marian, a fascinating gallery owner. The years may fly by but talented, good-looking, and passionate females still fall at Salvo’s feet despite his getting into trouble every time he opens his mouth. Salvo feels guilty about cheating on his long-time GF Livia. 

No fool, Livia has realized on some paranormal level that she has lost something. She falls into depression marked by isolation (she stops going to work and seeing friends), disturbed sleep, fatigue, loss of appetite, and slow-moving concentration and activity. Alarmingly to readers but not to Salvo the Knucklehead, she also suffers the classic anxiety symptom of feeling that something dreadful is going to happen. Poor Livia!

The ending is a bit forced but Camilleri’s writing is so good the reader doesn’t care. Salvo is a brilliant character because he has his faults just like anybody else. He does things his own way. He is smart like the memorable fictional detectives such as Sherlock Holmes and Poirot though there are times when he gets easily distracted because of his highly-strung emotions. Montalbano is an ordinary guy thrust into nutty situations brought on by other fallible humans.

Other Montalbano Mysteries: click on the title to read a review:

·         The Terracotta Dog — 2002 (Il cane di terracotta — 1996)

·         The Voice of the Violin — 2003 (La voce del violino — 1997)

·         The Scent of the Night — 2005 (L’odore della notte — 2001)

·         Rounding the Mark — 2006 (Il giro di boa — 2003)

·         The Paper Moon — 2008 (La luna di carta — 2005)

·         August Heat — 2009 (La vampa d'agosto — 2006)

·         The Wings of the Sphinx — 2009 (Le ali della sfinge — 2006)

·         The Track of Sand — 2010 (La pista di sabbia — 2007)

·         The Potters Field — 2011 (Il campo del vasaio — 2008)

·         A Beam of Light — 2015 (Una lama di luce — 2012)

But Never Forgotten

Skydog: The Duane Allman Story - Randy Poe

I don’t read biographies of writers and entertainers often because knowing too much about artists’ horrible behavior with fists and guns and cars and alcohol or fringe beliefs sometimes spoils their work for me. For instance, I know it’s narrow-minded of me to have consigned Eric Clapton to my dustbin of history due to his 1976 racist rant. But there it is – it is indeed possible to despise a celeb for more than 40 years and not just because of I Shot the Sheriff or Wonderful Tonight or Lay Down Sally (no links – you’re welcome). But don’t scorn, is my advice, only my soul was hurt by doing so.

Anyway, although this biography tells more about the teenagerly views of fatherly responsibility of the subject than I wanted to know, it is still worth reading for hardcore fans of one of rock history’s preeminent guitarists. Duane Allman played on the greatest live album in the history of creation. He was killed at the age of 24 in motorcycle accident in October 1971 near Macon, Georgia.

The book begins with the birth of the two brothers Duane and the younger Gregg Allman. It describes a childhood darkened by the murder of their father Willis, a WWII veteran, at the hands of another veteran in a robbery at the end of 1949.

The other chapters are devoted to the early musical development and influences of the brothers as well as their first bands such as the Allman Joys and Hour Glass. Here the fan learns in copious detail how Duane Allman worked his way up step by step. He began as a self-taught beginner listening to the radio and learning to same records over and over. Then, through the years of tireless practice, he became a sought-after session guitarist for southern soul artists like Clarence Carter and Wilson Pickett, superstar Aretha Frankllin and later rockers like Delaney & Bonnie and that anti-vaks nitwit.

Poe avoids the common trap of entertainer biographies by skipping detail about contracts and projects that never got off the ground. Mercifully, he skips over lawsuits and the ham-fisted firing of Dickey Betts in 2000 (‘We hope that you will seek treatment and return to us happy and healthy in the fall,’ said the fax). But it is to the credit of the writer that he obviously did his homework by conducting interviews with survivors and digging up articles in old newspapers and magazines.

The Ides of Perry Mason 32

On the 15th of the month for the last two and a half years I've gone with a review of our fave lawyer. I'm wondering about ending this practice. But we'll see what happens (gag, remember Orange always used to say that - I feel I gotta a hair in my mouth....).

The Case of the Lazy Lover - Erle Stanley Gardner

- Give up Mrs. Allred as a client. Let some other attorney take this case into his own hands.

- Why?

- Because you have no chance of winning.

In this 1947 mystery, super lawyer Perry Mason receives two $2,500 checks from a woman he’s never heard of before, Lola Faxon Allred. Plus, the checks, worth about $30K in 2021 money, are drawn from two different banks. Perry and his office manager Della Street then find out one of the checks is forged.  Veteran readers of Gardner know that when there are two of anything – guns, illicit lovers - the Needle on the Complicated Plot Meter could spin right off the dial.

Bertrand C. Allred, a slick mining mogul who’s also Lola’s hubby, soon arrives at Mason's office. He tells the tale that his wife Lola – supposedly, in her late thirties, at a "dangerous age" - ran away with a much younger lover, Robert G. Fleetwood. Not only that - Fleetwood was Allred's right hand man and courted the daughter from Lola's first marriage. Allred is not afraid of a cross-generational romance or scandal, because he’s ready to divorce his wife.

But Fleetwood remains problematic. Knowing all the skeletons in all the closets, only Fleetwood can provide blockbuster testimony in a case against Allred's company in a lawsuit brought on by hard case. Bert needs to get in touch with the boyfriend-star witness Fleetwood, and pronto.

It soon turns out that the alleged lazy lover Fleetwood is not lazy at all, but is acting unmotivated and lethargic and blurry because he suffered amnesia as a result of car accident. Why was Allred lying? He can’t explain himself or his falsehoods, because he died in a car accident - or maybe on account of blows to the head, perhaps from a jack-handle wielded by poor Lola?

The "lazy lover case" is perhaps one of the most difficult cases in the career of the famous lawyer. Not only is Perry Mason's client Lola - which is customary - lying, but probably everyone associated with these events is lying. Mason is in a difficult position. Soon Lola Faxon-Allred is accused of murdering her husband. In the best intentions, though accidentally, this is also brought about by Mason himself. Tragg can’t let a chance to gloat pass him by: “This is the first time not only Perry Mason's client has a noose around her neck, but the great Perry Mason himself put it on her.”

The plot may seem a couple yards beyond confusing. There’s no courtroom climax.  but it's still the good old Gardner - with interesting twists, outstanding interrogation scenes, the reality of post-war America, typical of noir-light crime fiction, with a bit of humor and a surprising ending.

For fans of the series - a must-read.

Tim Frazer #2

Tim Frazer Again – Francis Durbridge

The longest–running BBC thriller series of the early 1960s was The World of Tim Frazer. It was so popular in fact that professional writer Francis Durbridge was encouraged to write three novels starring the engineer-spy Tim Frazer. Laid-back and relatable, Tim is an everyman character that we like in comfort reading like this lightweight 1972 classic.

A fellow agent Leo Salinger in Tim’s unnamed spy agency is struck and killed by a car in Amsterdam. The driver, comely Englishwoman Barbara Day, is cleared of culpability. But Tim’s boss, the enigmatic Ross, wonders if Salinger was bent, a disturbing thought since hiring Salinger would reflect badly on Ross’ judgement. Tim Frazer is sent to Holland to shadow Barbara Day to see if she makes any shady contacts.

Barbara Day seems to be just what is, a partner in an antique business. Tim returns to London, only to meet a weird situation. He discovers the body of American tourist in Barbara’s apartment. The cops think Tim knows more than he is saying and boss Ross tells Tim that he is on his own in dealing with the cops.

The story is complicated without confusion. Weird artifacts like metronomes and tulip bulb catalogs stir up our curiosity. Iffy bad guys start fights and attempt murder, though violence is minimized. There’s a Master Controller that even the thugs are scared of, mortally. As I said, Tim as hero is approachable, without the lone hero stuff of Jack Reacher or killer machine relentlessness of John Wick. The writing is smooth and readable despite the frequent and odd use of jarring adverbs like “exasperatingly” and “hostilely.”

Back to the Classics 2022 Sign-Up

I will read these books for the reading challenge Back to the Classics 2022.

Thanks to Karen K. for hosting yet again! I was shocked and saddened that 80% of us hardcore readers who signed up last year were unable to read 12 books in 12 months. As a culture, we are too distracted with doing stuff and dealing with this wretched pandemic and not nearly idle enough to read as much as we want. "The art of culture," said wise man Lin Yutang, "is ... essentially the art of loafing."

Round 1: Click the title to go to the review

19th Century Classic: Fanaticism – Gilbert Vale (1835)

A Classic Short Story Collection: Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov – Robert Chandler et al

A Nonfiction Classic: The Captive Mind – Czeslaw Milosz (1951)

Wild Card Classic: America, I Like You – P.G. Wodehouse (1956)

Classic by a Woman: Elizabeth and Her German Garden - Elizabeth von Arnim (1898)

Classic That's Been on Your TBR List the Longest: A Family and a Fortune - Ivy Compton-Burnett (1939)

Mystery Classic: The Lady in the Lake – Raymond Chandler (1942)

Pre-1800 Classic: On Obligations – Cicero (44 B.C.)

Classic in Translation: The Stranger – Albert Camus (1942)

20th Century Classic: Light in August – William Faulkner (1932)

Classic Set in a Place You'd Like to Visit: A Room with a View – E.F. Forster (1908)

Classic by a BIPOC Author: Analects – Confucius (ca. 500 B.C.E)

Round 2: June to December, 2022

Classic on Your TBR Longest: Edwin Mullhouse – Steven Millhauser (1972)

Classic in Translation: Maigret Afraid (Maigret Se Trompe) – Georges Simenon (1953)

Nonfiction Classic: Aspects of the Novel – E.M. Forster (1927)

Wild Card Classic: The Manticore – Robertson Davies (1972)

Classic Short Stories: The Unvanquished – William Faulkner (1938)

20th Century Classic: The Beautiful and the Damned – F. Scott Fitzgerald (1922)

Classic by a BIPOC Author: Six Chapters in a Floating Life – Shen Fu (1877)

Classic by a Woman: Parents and Children – Ivy Compton Burnett (1941)

Pre-1800 Classic: Four Major Plays of Chikamatsu – Donald Keene (Translator)

Classic Set in a Place You'd Like to Visit: Loving – Henry Green (1945)

Mystery Classic: In a Lonely Place – Dorothy Hughes (1947)

19th Century Classic: A Woman of No Importance - Oscar Wilde (1894)

Modernist Novel

Pitch Dark – Renata Adler

First published in 1983, this novel is narrated by protagonist Kate Ennis, journalist and novelist, coming out of, scarred, an affair with an inconsiderate, probably worthless, married man. She’s trying to find meaning in love. Or, in loss. And from love and loss, all other events, from disposing of sick raccoons (remember Lawrence having to do in the hedgehog?) to midnight escapes across rural Ireland. Anguish, the flight from herself and from others, the search for identity, mistrust in the world, suspicion that people have such anxiety that manifests in thwarted entitlement and disrespect for other people, the willingness to take all the air out of rooms with their anger, obtuseness, off-handedness.

And all kinds of asides in this book, filling the spaces, because even the most depressed and anxious among us hardcore readers need digressions and tangents and forays to feed that spark of interest, curiosity, we have:

What’s new? The biography of the opera star says she used to ask in every phone call, and What else? I’m not sure the biographer understood another thing about the opera star, but I do believe that What’s new. What else. They may be the first questions of the story, of the morning, of consciousness. What’s new. What else. What next. What’s happened here, says the inspector, or the family man looking at the rubble of his house. What’s it to you, says the street tough or the bystander. What’s it worth to you, says the paid informer or the extortionist. What is it now, says the executive or the husband, disturbed by the fifteenth knock at the door, or phone call, or sigh in the small hours of the night. What does it mean, says the cryptographer. What does it all mean, says the student or the philosopher on his barstool. What do I care. What’s the use. What’s the matter. Where’s the action. What kind of fun is that. Let me say that everyone’s story in the end is the old whore’s, or the Ancient Mariner’s: I was not always as you see me now. And the sentient man, the sentient person says in his heart, from time to time, What have I done.

In the midst of all this jumble, questions. Also the past, which comes back again and again. And her voice. Expressive, sensitive and intelligent. That she speaks to us, sometimes, with a keen sense of humor. And she confesses. And she rambles about life and writing while she examines her own reality.

With a fragmented narrative, Adler not only works on memory, which can be understood, kind of, despite the lack of signposts for certain memories and jumps across associations, but also delves directly into feeling, the emotions memory evokes. Her novel, fleeing from her hurtful affair is a tale of loss and search. It's about what we've all felt and what we know.

There are passages of suspense and overwhelming unease. The set piece of the midnight flight by car across rural Ireland is a tour de force, bringing to mind the nightmare journey in Fortress Besieged (1947) by Ch'ien Chung-shu. 

Getting into it takes perseverance, but at a certain point it grabbed me and not just because of the haunting narrative voice. Adler, I think, wanted me to think about how I read certain books, what I think are limits on what novelists can do and still regard their artifacts as novels. 

Snappy New Year

The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho

What better time than the beginning of a new year to stop procrastinating self-improvement? One good start would be with this self-help book in the form of a quest novel. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd who goes on a quest to the Pyramids and finds knowledge about himself, other people, and the world.

I am the kind of guy who believes in Fate, i.e. the terms and conditions of life on this planet. Although the author of this book seems to believe more than me that we have some measure of control over terms and conditions, I am not going to argue, because useful truths come out of thinking about disagreements.

The only self-help I usually read  are books by Albert Ellis. But this quest novel was a reminder of what is often forgotten but important. Not something new, but it has been heard hundreds of times. Some lessons:

·         Fear of failure is a bigger obstacle than failure itself.

·         Be here now. Focus on the present.

·         Mix it up. Don’t do the same things in the same way.

·         Embrace change.

·         Know your own values and stick by them lest other people thrust their preferences on you and make you a tool.

·         Make the decision. Fight procrastination.

·         Dismiss the opinions of others. They don’t know or care what you’re dealing with.

·         Practice re-faming. Think more positively about things you don’t like that have to be lived with. The words you use to yourself count. 

It is presented in a plain style that started to cloy after a half-hour, but style is not important when the reminders are relevant. I will not recommend reading this book, I can only advise you to ask yourself - is it time for you to read it? And everyone will have their own answer, because everyone has their own destiny as we enter covid's junior year.